Microsoft CRM MVP Matt Wittemann shares his insights into the inner workings of Microsoft Dynamics CRM with valuable articles about development, customization, power-user tips, and administration. http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/BlogId/15/Default.aspx en-US brent.eicher@customer-connect.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:36:56 GMT Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:36:56 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blog RSS Generator Version 3.4.0.39853 <p>When working with Contact records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you might find it frustrating if someone asks you to send them the address of a particular contact. You either have to re-type it or copy it line by line. To save yourself the headache, use the ISVConfig customizations in CRM 3.0 or CRM 4.0 to add a button to the Contact form that lets you copy the address to the clipboard. The example below illustrates how to do this for the Contact.</p> <p>1. In the CRM Customizations area, go to "Export Customizations"</p> <p>2. Export the ISVConfig.xml file and save this file. Make a copy for backup.</p> <p>3. Edit the XML in Notepad or Visual Studio. Place the following code between the <Entities></Entities> tags:</p> <p><hr /> </p> <p><Entity name="contact"><br />    <MenuBar><br />             <!-- Custom Menus that you may add --><br />             <CustomMenus /><br />           </MenuBar><br /> <ToolBar ValidForCreate="1" ValidForUpdate="1"><br />             <Button JavaScript="var texttocopy;<br /> var AddrL2;<br /> if(!IsNull(crmForm.all.address1_line2.DataValue))<br /> {<br /> AddrL2 = ' ' + crmForm.all.address1_line2.DataValue + '\n';<br /> }<br /> else<br /> {<br /> AddrL2 = '</p> <p>';<br /> }<br /> try<br /> {<br /> texttocopy = crmForm.all.firstname.DataValue + ' ';<br /> texttocopy += crmForm.all.lastname.DataValue + '\n';<br /> texttocopy += crmForm.all.jobtitle.DataValue + '\n';<br /> texttocopy +=</p> <p>crmForm.all.parentcustomerid.DataValue[0].name + '\n';texttocopy += crmForm.all.address1_line1.DataValue + '\n';<br /> texttocopy += AddrL2;texttocopy += crmForm.all.address1_city.DataValue</p> <p>+ ', ' + crmForm.all.address1_stateorprovince.DataValue + '  '  + crmForm.all.address1_postalcode.DataValue + '\n';window.clipboardData.setData('Text',texttocopy);alert('Address</p> <p>Copied to Clipboard');}catch(e){alert('Error');}"><br />               <Titles><br />                 <Title LCID="1033" Text="Copy Address" /><br />               </Titles><br />               <ToolTips><br />                 <ToolTip LCID="1033" Text="Copy Address to Clipboard" /><br />               </ToolTips><br />             </Button><br />           </ToolBar><br />         </Entity></p> <p><hr /> </p> <p>4. Import the ISVConfig.xml file back into CRM.</p> <p>5. Refresh your CRM in the browser, open a Contact record, and test your button out.</p> <p>Happy copying and pasting!</p> <p>Tip: You may need to go to the Settings > Administration > System Settings > Customizations tab in CRM 4.0 to indicate that you want the ISVConfig customizations to show in the web and/or Outlook clients. In 3.0 you need to edit a config file on the CRM server (more info about this is in the SDK).</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/46/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/46/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=46 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:06:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=46 <p>Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 has built-in duplicate detection which is great, but in 3.0, which many businesses are still using, the only options for duplicate detection were some third-party applications or a a custom-developed one like the minimally functional example in the 3.0 SDK.</p> <p>[BEST PRACTICES NOTE: Duplicate detection should be only one of the tools in you data quality arsenal. The best approach is  to have some solid practices that govern data entry, and to train users well on things like searching for a record before entering new data.]</p> <p>Because of the shortcomings of duplicate detection in version 3.0, a lot of these systems have ended up with some data quality issues. If you're running CRM 3.0 and you'd like a quick way to check your duplicates, here's a simple SQL query you can run to find them.</p> <ol> <li>Open SQL Server Management Studio and select your CRM database (it will be called something like 'YourCompanyName_MSCRM')</li> <li>Right-click the CRM database name and select 'New Query.'</li> <li>In the query window, type the following query:<br /> <br /> <font face="Courier New" color="#666699">  SELECT name, COUNT(name) AS NumOccurrences<br />   FROM FilteredAccount<br />   GROUP BY name<br />   HAVING (COUNT(name) > 1)<br />   ORDER BY NumOccurrences DESC</font>   </li> <li><font color="#000000" size="2">Then click the 'Execute' button to run the query. You'll get back a list that looks like this:</font> <p><font color="#000000" size="2"> <table height="98" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" width="333" border="1"> <tbody> <tr> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">name</font></td> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">NumOccurrences</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">Bakersfield Furniture</font></td> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">3</font></td> </tr> <tr> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">Dodge City Wholesale</font></td> <td><font face="Courier New" size="2">2</font></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </font></p> </li> </ol> <p>If you are using an account number or other identifier that should be unique, you can replace 'name' in the query with the name of that field to be more precise.  Then you can go about locating the accounts in CRM and deciding what to do with them. Remember that CRM 3 and 4 have a "merge" function that lets you select two records at a time in a list view and merge them together by clicking the merge icon at the top of the list.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/45/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/45/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=45 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:14:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=45 <p>Traditional CRM needs to evolve to keep pace with customers who are accustomed to two-sided relationships, a la Web 2.0 social media/communities.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/38/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/38/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=38 Tue, 06 May 2008 21:30:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=38 <p>Here's a good starting point if you're troubleshooting problems with CRM 4.0. Bookmark this link and check it regularly as Microsoft updates the article whenever they have a new fix available.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949256/en-us"><font color="#cc0000">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949256/en-us</font></a></p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/35/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/35/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=35 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:07:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=35 <p>I posted previously about my experiences upgrading CRM 3.0 SBE (the Small Business Server edition) to CRM 4.0 Professional. One major area I wanted to address also was the upgrade of the Outlook client. We've dealt with a lot of upgrades of the laptop, or offline, client, and run into some issues.<br /> <br /> Basically, you want to uninstall the 3.0 client and then do a clean install of the 4.0 client. Of course, you need to be logged in as the user who will be using Outlook/CRM, and have local admin rights.<br /> <br /> The problem is that the uninstall of the 3.0 client is not very clean, especially with the laptop client, because it leaves behind the SQL Express databases, and there's no easy way to see them. Simply deleting the files after the uninstall is not enough. You actually have to delete the databases from SQL using Management Studio. Since most people don't have management studio installed on their machines, and due to networking differences, many computers won't be visible to your SQL Server's Management Studio, the workaround we found to work best is to download the SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE) directly onto the laptop. It can be downloaded <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6053c6f8-82c8-479c-b25b-9aca13141c9e&displaylang=en"><font color="#555555">here</font></a>.<br /> <br /> Once installed, open SSMSE and connect to the local CRM database on the laptop (not on your CRM server!) and right-click and delete the two CRM databases. Then go back and remove any leftover folders or directories before proceeding with your installation of the 4.0 client.<br /> <br /> PS: We've seen a few instances where the Outlook client crashes with the 4.0 client installed. Microsoft has a hotfix available, though apparently not for the particular scenario that was causing this crash. We'll keep you posted if we find a fix for this as well!</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/34/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/34/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=34 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:00:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=34 <p>Microsoft has released the much-anticipated CRM Online (formerly called CRM Live), the Microsoft-hosted, SaaS version of Dynamics CRM 4.0. To sign up, go to the <a href="http://crm.dynamics.com/"><font color="#555555">website</font></a> or contact your Dynamics partner.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/33/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/33/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=33 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:37:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=33 <p>I recently performed my first upgrade of CRM 3.0 SBE (on Small Business Server 2003 R2) to CRM 4.0 Professional. Here are some important considerations if you are planning for your own upgrade.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/31/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/31/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=31 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:32:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=31 <p>CRM 4.0&#160;now offers the ability to turn off the tracking token and still track most email messages.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/22/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/22/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=22 Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:38:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=22 <p>Just got word today that I've been re-awarded the <a href="https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/profile/wittemann"><font color="#555555">Microsoft MVP award for CRM </font></a>for 2008. Thanks to Microsoft, Customer Connect, and the CRM community!</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/21/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/21/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=21 Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:55:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=21 <p>Microsoft has announced a name change to their hosted CRM service. The service, now known as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is still targeted for a Q2 release.</p> http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/20/Default.aspx http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/crmblog/Home/tabid/866/EntryID/20/Default.aspx#Comments http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/Default.aspx?tabid=866&EntryID=20 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:08:00 GMT 0 http://prod1.si-sv1740.com/DesktopModules/Blog/Trackback.aspx?id=20